“The room was filled with smoke, dry worn-out smoke retaining in it like a web the insectile cadavers of dry husks of words which had been spoken and should be gone, the breaths exhaled not to be br...”

“Most people are clever because they don't know how to be honest." William Gaddis, The Recognitions.”

“Justice? -- You get justice in the next world. In this one you have the law.”

“Justice? -You get justice in the next world, in this world you have the law.”

“Then, what is sacrelige [sic]? If it is nothing more than a rebellion against dogma, it is eventually as meaningless as the dogma it defies, and they are both become hounds ranting in the high gras...”

“All weve got left to protect here is a system thats set up to promote the meanest possibilities in human nature and make them look good.”

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they ...”

“Does anything in nature despair except man? An animal with a foot caught in a trap does not seem to despair. It is too busy trying to survive. It is all closed in, to a kind of still, intense waiti...”

“It is a curious thing, but as one travels the world getting older and older, it appears that happiness is easier to get used to than despair. The second time you have a root beer float, for instanc...”

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.”

“When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women”

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”